The Cubs and Red Sox are still trying to work out the compensation that will allow the Cubs to hire Theo Epstein as their new General Manager. While things have been mostly quiet on the front, it did come out over the weekend that the Red Sox initially requested Cubs starting pitcher Matt Garza in the deal. Good luck with that one John Henry. What a joke. I hope Tom Ricketts laughed in their faces when they threw Garza’s name out there, just as he should do if the Red Sox throw out the Cubs top prospect – Brett Jackson – as the player who needs to move if the Cubs want to complete the deal.

This is turning into a complete charade, as it appears that Red Sox management is being completely unreasonable. If you knew you would only let Theo go if the other team gave you a top major league player or a top prospect, then you should have made that clear when you granted the other team position to talk to your GM. If you really wanted your GM there long-term (or at least for the final year of his contract), then you should not have even granted another team the right to speak to Theo.

Red Sox management is making this way more difficult than it needs to be and I hope Ricketts holds his ground before succumbing to the Red Sox egregious demands. At this point, the last thing that the Red Sox want to do is bring Theo back, so they are in just as a tough position as the Cubs are. After all the things John Henry has said the last 2 weeks, can you really see Theo serving out his final year as Red Sox GM? No way. If that happened, the Red Sox would probably have to pay Theo the value of his final year PLUS the $3.5 million conclusion bonus just to sit on the sideline. I can’t see them trusting Theo enough to play a major role in selecting the Red Sox next manager and then making major player decisions which will affect the Red Sox organization for the next several years.

It’s clear that both Red Sox management and the Ricketts family will have to “bend” a little in order to get this deal done. Ricketts wants Theo to turn his bad club around and the Red Sox want Theo out of their skin so they can go onto the next phase with a new GM and a new manager. Now they just need to take a step back, realize what is at stake and come up with a minor league prospect who can make both sides save face. I know that’s tough to swallow for millionaires with insane egos who are used to getting what they want. But if they look at the alternatives at this point of the negotiations, I think they’ll be able to see which is the better way to proceed.

We’ll keep you posted as soon as anything goes”official” before the start of the World Series on Wednesday…